Gratitude

I love clouds.

 Today is Thanksgiving here in the US.  This holiday has always made me reflect on those things I am grateful for.  I try to be grateful throughout the whole year, but this day helps me to say out loud the things I am grateful for.  I hope you will bare with me as I share some of those things.

  

Zions National Park, Utah

I am grateful for this beautiful earth because everyday I am reminded of the love that God has for us.  I am grateful for my husband and children and their unconditional love.  They love me despite my weaknesses and imperfections. 

I am grateful for my parents and Clint's parents and for our extended family.  We moved to Saint George and thought we would be all alone, but have been blessed to have both families visit a lot.

I am grateful for a house to live in, food to eat and clothes to wear. I realize that just the necessities in life are taken for granted when I think of people around the world who don't have as much. I pray that I will always be grateful for those things.  

I am grateful for my love of quilting.  

I am grateful to all of you who I have met throughout this past year since I started teaching.  I can't thank you enough for coming to my classes and making me feel so at ease when truthfully I have been scared out of my mind nervous to be standing in front of you.  

I am grateful for the years of support from all of my readers and followers. Thank you! 

There are so many more things that I could say I am grateful for, but these are the ones that stand out today. I want to wish all of you celebrating today a Happy Thanksgiving! To those of you not celebrating today I wish you a wonderful day and weekend. Thanks for listening. 

My first time to Nashville.

 

A few weeks ago I was preparing for a trip to Nashville.  I was playing with silk too!  The project above was made from left over blocks from the "secret project" that will be shared sometime in February.  I gave this little beauty away on Instagram (@judiakagreenfairy) and hopefully the new owner will love it as much as I do. 

 

The back of this little beauty is fantastic.  I never tire of the beautiful texture that quilting makes. 

 

So, Nashville.  Yep - I am not a country music fun, except for George Straight - Pure Country and all.  I flew through Denver and saw the most amazing clouds.  It is always a treat to be in the clouds and enjoy the beauty of this earth.  

Why Nashville?  I went to film an online class that should be available sometime in February. 

 

It was beautiful there.  I was able to catch the last part of Fall there.  We have some yellow trees around us in St. George, but I haven't seen any beautiful red trees like this one. 

 

This was my view for two days. In a studio filled with cameras and the all watching eyes from those ladies in the back.  See the guy on the right?  His name is James and he thought that quilting was pretty cool.  He asked for my sample when I was finished filming.  How could I say no?  He told me that he is going to frame it.  So sweet of him. 

 

Meredith Schroeder, me, Elaine and Lynn from AQS Publishing.  These ladies are incredible and it was so fun getting to know them better in the two days I was there. 

 

 

I am really excited for the class to come out and I will be sure to tell you when it is available. It was a great learning experience for me and I still have to pinch myself when I think of all the amazing opportunities I have had because of my quilting.

 

I didn't have time to really see everything around Nashville, but I did happen to check out the Grand Ole Opry.  It was pretty amazing.

MQX open for registration!

Quilting from my Secondary Quilting class. 

Okay, so I have finally updated my Teaching/Events page to reflect my teaching for next year up until June 2015. MQX has opened registration and my 3 hands-on classes are already filled - sorry about that, but I have 6 other lecture/demo classes that will be a lot of fun and I hope to see you in New Hampshire.  

If you can't make it to the East Coast, then I will be in Paducah (pinch me) and Salt Lake City in April and May. I am also heading to Canada again in June. I will let you know when these other venues open up registration for my classes.  I am excited for the Spring, it is going to be a lot of fun!  In the meantime, I have a lot of quilting to do!

New Zealand Part 1

 

I realize that a lot of my posts may not necessarily be about quilting, but I have found that every aspect of my life is who I am and so I want to share this on my blog.  I want to thank you in advance for reading. After my teaching trip to Australia, Clint and I headed to New Zealand, I have always wanted to go there.  Especially since I have watched Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia. I have to say, it didn't disappoint.  Everywhere I looked was green hills with beautiful pastures of cows and sheep.  The topography is amazing there and it was complete eye candy everywhere we looked.  Clint had to learn to drive on the left side of the road instead of the right, and that was hilarious and totally confusing at first.

 

We stayed two nights in a loft in Cambridge and the above photo was our view.  It was so beautiful! 

 

We made our way to Hobbiton and the tour was amazing!  Seriously.  Everything here is natural and part of the amazing outside set for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.

 

We got to see Bilbo and Frodo Baggins hobbit house.  

 

As well as Samwise Gamgee's place. 

 

I loved how much effort was put into making this look as real as possible, even down to the mailbox.  

 

 

One of my favorite things about traveling is being able to find different plants and flowers.  These little beauties were amazing! 

 

So, so beautiful!

 

It was hard choosing which pictures to share, but I wanted to share the things that I really loved about visiting there.

 

Anytime I see a bridge it reminds me of the romantic proposal at the end of Anne of Green Gables.  Call me crazy, but I love bridges and one day I will be at the bridge where Gilbert proposes to Anne.  Preferably with my own Prince Charming - just putting a bug in Clint's ear ;-)

 

Clint and I had a wonderful time walking around the Shire. It was a perfect day.  

 

I love these beautiful flowers. 

I loved the doors to the Green Dragon.  So many inspirations for quilting can be found anywhere.  You just have to look!

Later that day Clint and I took a walk to an abandoned Military barracks somewhere in Cambridge. This would be the perfect setting for a quilt backdrop, or using the textures within this building as inspiration for my quilting.  I just loved it. 

Aren't these flowers beautiful?

These trees were amazing.  We were there in the springtime, so everything was coming to life.  The birds in these trees were chasing each other and singing, it was really amazing.  Clint took a video of the birds in action. 

Here's a closeup of the blossoms on the trees.  So amazing. 

We finished the night with a lovely view of the valley and the sunset.  Stay tuned for the other part of our New Zealand trip. 

Have  a wonderful weekend!